Names people and their contributions to computer development?

Answer 1

Ancient Greeks - invented the Abacus, along with the development of the mathematical proof, which brought us out of the dark ages of Mathematics)

Blaise Pascal - invented the Pascaline, a mechanical calculator which supported addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

George Robert Stibitz - invented the Model K - a relay-based calculator supporting binary addition. He also was integral in the invention/discovery of binary/boolean logic.

Turing - One of the most important fathers of Computer Science.

- Introduced the notion of the "Turing Machine" - a hypothetical device.

- Designed the "Bombe", an electromechanical device used to crack messages encrypted by the Nazi Enigma. Turing's work on this machine was critical to the Allie's victory over Germany.

Edsger W. Dijkstra - A very famous computer scientist, almost as famous as Turing.

- Invented an algorithm for solving the Shortest Path Problem, known as Dijkstra's Algorithm

- One of the first critics of the use of the unconditional branch (AKA the GOTO statement) in programming.

- Invented the Semaphore, a programming concept useful in multi, concurrent and parallel programming

- Invented the Banker's Algorithm, useful for avoiding deadlock in parallel systems.

Peter Neumann - invented Unics, later renamed Unix

Linus Torvalds - invented Linux

Bjarne Stroustrup - invented the C++ language (originally under the name "C with classes")

There are so many other important advances and contributions to computer development - the commercialization of computers, the Minicomputer, the invention of the integrated circuit and it's ever shrinking size, inventors of programming languages, operating systems... there really is far too much to list in one location.